Similar in premise to some of the weekly newsmagazine’s other well-known guides – “Best Grad Schools” and “Best Colleges”, for example – U.S. News’ goal for Top Hospitals is to measure and rank medical institutions nationwide for treatment of rare and complex medical conditions across 16 different specialties.

Using a methodology based on three equally-weighted parts – reputation, mortality and care-related factors – Top Hospitals 2006 evaluated 5189 hospitals. Of these, only 176 scored high enough to qualify for ranking within any specialty. The Top Hospitals list only includes the top 50 institutions in each specialty.

For more information on "America's Best Hospitals 2006", please click here.